by Pim van Nes
Mister-Baseball.com: Mr Paddy Roomer, your name has popped up more and more in present season press releases by Netherlands baseball federation KNBSB. Recently followers of Dutch baseball read that you were accompanying Premier12 selection of the Netherlands Kingdom at Willemstad, Curacao. Please tell Mister Baseball readers across the baseball globe where you were born and grew up and what you did professionally before you got involved in baseball.
Paddy Roomer: I was born in Rotterdam, nearby Sparta, a soccer, cricket and baseball club. From 1996 till 2006 i had my own company in consultancy. From 2007 till 2011 I was chairman of the board of Hoek van Holland, a seaside village and an area of the city of Rotterdam. From 2012 again consultancy, but now in advising governments.
Mister-Baseball.com: Since when have you been active for KNBSB and which are your official goals in the body governing national baseball and softball in this northern European country?
Paddy Roomer: My activities started at the end of 2013. The goals are to build a business network around team Kingdom of Netherlands, the best country of the continent Europe and one of the best teams in the world. Further to have the best relationship with the islands of the Kingdom. I believe in the we world of baseball. From that premise we want to offer the best partnerships.
Mister-Baseball.com: How much time do you spend to KNBSB during working days and how much in overtime? Do you work exactly according official lines or do you try to discover new ways towards future relations and partners?
Paddy Roomer: Renewal means embracing the good old ones but also dare to go for new opportunities. I am not working. If you can do things in life that gives you the energy baseball gives you, then you know that time is not relevant. Try to translate pleasure and energy in time and you will get the knowledge that time does not exist.
Mister-Baseball.com: Are these potential relations and partners only in the Netherlands or also outside the country in Europe and possibly on other global continents? Which new financial and material sponsors have joined Dutch baseball during your engagement?
Paddy Roomer: Kingdom Baseball is global. We have stars around the world. So the potential partners can be global. In March 2016 we will have a Baseball Business Event in Rotterdam. Companies from the United States with an office in the Netherlands and Kingdom Netherlands companies with an office in the United States can network with each other and is made possible by the baseball sport. In this case Kingdom of Netherlands baseball.
Another example is that team Kingdom of Netherlands has been asked to join our Minister of foreign trade to join a trade mission to Cuba. An opportunity to show companies what baseball can mean for them. And believe me we can open doors on the best levels. I putted a lot of energy in convincing governments that the team will be recognized an acknowledged in countries as the United States, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and many more countries.
Mister-Baseball.com: Does your networking also deliver non-profit sponsors, which will never show their names on game uniforms or after game outfit for our national team players? If so, please clarify how you reached their representatives and how they participate in baseball and softball top events: before, during and after the game.
Paddy Roomer: What we offer is exposure, business network, database network and relationship marketing. So also for non-profit partners (I do believe in partnerships) we can work out the best profile to help them achieve goals. Based on that, we can also help them with socially responsible business. Partnership creates the we world of winning with each other.
Mister-Baseball.com: Which suggestions do you like to share with foreign baseball and softball federations in Europe, more or less struggling with same economic problems in their country?
Paddy Roomer: I do not believe in problems. Believe in opportunities. Even a problem is an opportunity. An opportunity to do it in another way or at another level. Think global and dare to live in the we world.
This is such typical KNBSB posturing.
For a world power, the Dutch just got their heads handed to them by USA — in a “Primere” tournament which the majority of American baseball people neither know nor care about.
Dutch baseball’s competitiveness exists — and always has rested — on the backs of Caribbean players. Guys from Curacao and Aruba, maybe 8-10% of whom principally speak Dutch, are the sole reason Holland wins at all. Without the Caribbean players, the Netherlands would be the 3rd or 4th team in Europe.
The KNBSB has historically been a financial basket case (whole boards turning over at a time, on the edge of bankruptcy a few years ago). For them to be giving financial or marketing advice to ANYONE in the business world is a pure joke.
Apparently decades ago, somebody at the KNBSB read Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and decided to build their “world-renowned” baseball program on that base. Pity is they’ve convinced a lot of people, especially journalists, to buy into the fable.